What in the world is Qwikster? What will Netflix subscribers do?

Netflix’s move a few weeks ago to separate its DVD rental and streaming business has resulted in a loss of about a million customers and a decline in its stock price.

Last night, the CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings, apologized on the Netflix blog for the how that change came about. (Like many, I first heard about it online on Twitter, then read an AP story, before actually getting an email from Netflix explaining what was up.) But then he said he was splitting the DVD rental business from the streaming business.

Trying to avoid the fate of Borders, which closed the last of its bookstores over the weekend, Netflix Inc. is moving to separate the DVD-by-mail plan it built its business on from the online streaming service it’s betting will be future of entertainment consumption.

The mail order plan will be renamed “Qwikster.” In a few weeks, Netflix subscribers who want to get DVDs by mail will go to a separate website to access Qwikster. The streaming business will continue to be called Netflix.

Many of the objections are centered around the user experience issues raised by splitting the service into two distinct websites. The change runs the risk of causing serious damage to the service’s established user experience, argued Hubspot UX designer Joshua Porter in a blog post.

“They’re changing the user experience of their web apps to model the new company structure, not a structure that is most friendly to people,” Porter wrote. “This is an extremely common problem in user interface design. Netflix is in serious danger of breaking the user experience they are well-known for.”

The Netflix crew even put up a video:

I have never seen a video on YouTube with more “dislikes.”

Update: I first heard about this at 6 a.m. from my Twitter feed. When did I get an email from Netflix? After 9 this morning, more than 12 hours after the Netflix blog post went up about the change.